Originally posted by Nineveh
Passage please.
"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. "
Sounds pretty valuable to me....
Life for life if the mother dies. If the child is not born alive,
its just a monetary compensation. The life of the mother
is more valuable in the eyes of God than the life of the
unborn child. The "injury" in question applies to the woman,
not the child.
Exodus 21
22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [1 (note: also translated as miscarries)] but
there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows.
Gen 38:
8 Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." 9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.
The issue here is not the spilling of the seed, its denying the
brother's wife, and the dead brother, continuation of the family. This was important to the woman because without male children
to support them, women were doomed to destitution, as they
were considered property, and could not own land or make a
living.
Hence, prostitution was the only sanctioned income producing
profession a woman could take outside of marriage.
djm